am, fallaciter occultatam forsitan. The rest of
the herd are loud and strenuous.]

The prudence or fortune of the Franks had delayed their invasion till
the decline of the Turkish empire. [101] Under the manly government of
the three first sultans, the kingdoms of Asia were united in peace and
justice; and the innumerable armies which they led in person were equal
in courage, and superior in discipline, to the Barbarians of the West.
But at the time of the crusade, the inheritance of Malek Shaw was
disputed by his four sons; their private ambition was insensible of
the public danger; and, in the vicissitudes of their fortune, the
royal vassals were ignorant, or regardless, of the true object of their
allegiance. The twenty-eight emirs who marched with the standard or
Kerboga were his rivals or enemies: their hasty levies were drawn from
the towns and tents of Mesopotamia and Syria; and the Turkish veterans
were employed or consumed in the civil wars beyond the Tigris. The
caliph of Egypt embraced this opportunity of weakness and discord
to recover his ancient possessions; and his sultan Aphdal besieged
Jerusalem and Tyre, expelled the children of Ortok, and restored in
Palestine the civil and ecclesiastical authority of the Fatimites. [102]
They heard with astonishment of the vast armies of Christians that had
passed from Europe to Asia, and rejoiced in the sieges and battles
which broke the power of the Turks, the adversaries of their sect and
monarchy. But the same Christians were the enemies of the prophet; and
from the overthrow of Nice and Antioch, the motive of their enterprise,
which was gradually understood, would urge them forwards to the banks of
the Jordan, or perhaps of the Nile.

An intercourse of epistles and embassies, which rose and fell with the
events of war, was maintained between the throne of Cairo and the camp
of the Latins; and their adverse pride was the result of ignorance and
enthusiasm. The ministers of Egypt declared in a haughty, or insinuated
in a milder, tone, that their sovereign, the true and lawful commander
of the faithful, had rescued Jerusalem from the Turkish yoke; and that
the pilgrims, if they would divide their numbers, and lay aside their
arms, should find a safe and hospitable reception at the sepulchre
of Jesus. In the belief of their lost condition, the caliph Mostali
despised their arms and imprisoned their deputies: the conquest and
victory of Antioch prompted him to solic